J. Cole

Jermaine Lamarr Cole was born January 28, 1985 at an American military base in Frankfurt, West Germany. His father is an African American veteran, who served in the U.S. Army, and his mother, Kay, born in Michigan, is a European American who was a postal worker for the United States Postal Service. Cole’s father later abandoned the family during his youth. At the age of eight months his mother moved with him and his older brother Zach to the United States, to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Cole grew up in a multi-ethnic environment, and when asked about how closely his ethnicity impacts him, Cole commented, “I can identify with white people, because I know my mother, her side of the family, who I love. But at the end of the day, [I’ve] never felt white. I can identify [with white people] but never have I felt like I’m one of them. I identify more with what I look like, because that’s how I got treated [but] not necessarily in a negative way”. During his youth, Cole expressed an affinity for basketball and music, and served as a first-chair violinist for the Terry Sanford Orchestra until 2003.

Cole began rapping at the age of twelve, and saw it as an ideal profession in 2000, when his mother purchased an ASR-X musical sampler as a Christmas gift. During this period, Cole heightened emphasis on improving his production skills, later beginning initial production under the pseudonym Therapist. Cole later collaborated with local group Bomm Sheltuh, rapping and producing as a member of the group.

Cole can be seen in the crowd of the 2006 documentary Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. Upon graduating high school with a 4.2 GPA, Cole decided that his chances of securing a recording contract would be better in New York City. He moved there and accepted a scholarship to St. John’s University. Initially majoring in computer science, Cole later switched to communications after witnessing the life of a lonely computer science professor. At the college, Cole was the president of Haraya, a pan-African student coalition. He graduated magna cum laude in 2007, with a 3.8 GPA. Despite graduating, Cole would officially receive his degree during a homecoming concert in 2015, revealing that he had owed money for a library book, causing the university to hold back from granting him his degree.

Cole later worked in various part-time jobs in Fayetteville, including a working ad salesman for a newspaper, a bill collector, a file clerk, and a kangaroo mascot at a skate rink. is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, in early 2007. Intent on further pursuing a musical career, he went on to release two additional mixtapes, The Warm Up (2009) and Friday Night Lights (2010) both to critical acclaim, after signing to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation imprint in 2009.

1999–2008: Beginnings and early work

Logo used by J. Cole earlier in his career.

After becoming musically inspired by Canibus, Nas, Tupac and Eminem, Cole and his cousin worked on developing their basic understanding of rhyming and wordplay. As well as this, they began to learn how to interpolate storytelling within their lyrics. By 14, Cole had various notebooks filled with song ideas, however, was unable to produce beats further than sampling. Cole’s mother later purchased him the Roland TR-808 drum machine in order to further Cole’s understanding of production. Over the next three years, he began posting songs on various internet forums under the moniker Blaza, but later switched to the name Therapist.

2009 J. Cole released his second mixtape, The Warm Up, on June 15, 2009, to positive reviews. Cole appeared on Jay Z’s album The Blueprint 3 (2009), on the track “A Star Is Born.” He is featured on both Wale’s de but album, Attention Deficit (2009) and mixtape Back to the Feature (2009), respectively. In January 2010, Cole, along with label mate Jay Electronica and Mos Def appeared on Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek’s single, “Just Begun” for the follow-up of Reflection Eternal’s album Train of Thought (2000), titled Revolutions Per Minute (2010).qaàqq ,6d5ffffyu6ý66   8 2018 ‘zsaCole also appeared on B.o.B’s mixtape May 25 (2010), on the song “Gladiators”, produced by The Alchemist.

In 2011 J. Cole served as a supporting act for Drake on the Light Dreams and Nightmares UK Tour, from January 5–21, 2011. In April 2011, “HiiiPoWeR”, a song Cole produced for Kendrick Lamar’s Section.80 (2011) was released. The single was the first of many collaborations to come from the two. On May 22, 2011, Cole released a song entitled “Return of Simba,” the third in the “Simba” series of songs, following “Simba” and “Grown Simba.” Cole purposely avoided releasing his debut album’s title for fear of inconsistency, only announcing that Jay-Z would be featured on his debut album. Cole then released his follow-up single to “Who Dat”, the album’s lead single, “Work Out” on June 15, 2011, in honor of the second anniversary of his highly acclaimed mixtape The Warm Up. The song, produced by Cole himself, samples “The New Workout Plan” by Kanye West and interpolates “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul. The song later became a hit single, topping several music charts.

In 2012 Cole was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2012 Grammy Awards. Cole played for the Eastern Team in the 2012 NBA All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game. On February 24, 2012, Cole reached two million followers on Twitter, and celebrated by releasing the song “Grew Up Fast.” On March 1, 2012, Cole returned to his home town, Fayetteville, North Carolina. To celebrate his return, he released the song “Visionz of Home”, and launched an event titled “Dreamville Weekend” to inspire the youth of his hometown to achieve great things. Cole performed for the first time in Africa during the Big Brother Africa 7 opening ceremony on May 6, 2012, alongside Camp Mulla, P-Square, Naeto C, Flavour N’abania, Davido, and Aemo E’Face.

In 2014 On August 15, 2014, Cole released “Be Free” in response to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Three days later, he visited the city in order to meet with protesters and activists who were gathered at the site of his shooting, discussing the civil unrest that was taking place within the city. He performed the track with an additional verse at the Late Show with David Letterman on December 10. On November 16, Cole released a video announcing that his third studio album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, would be released on December 9. The video featured footage regarding the album’s composition, as well as revealed that the album’s name was derived from the address of Cole’s childhood home. He announced that the album would include no lead singles and have little promotion, but was supported by four promotional singles; “Apparently”, “Wet Dreamz”, “No Role Modelz”, and “Love Yourz”. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 upon release, selling 353,000 copies in its first week.

On July 29, 2016, DJ Khaled released his ninth studio album,[90] Major Key. Cole is featured on the track “Jermaine’s Interlude”. “Said all I could say, now I play with thoughts of retirement” is a direct quote from the track that caused some of Cole’s fans to worry about him and his music career. In an interview with Genius, Doctur Dot of the Atlanta duo EarthGang explained that the song was originally a nine-minute posse cut, he said, “We were just trying to get Bas to fuck with the song, but Cole was like, ‘I can’t resist this beat,’ so he hit the weed for the first time in a long time.” “He overthinks on weed but we were in the garage smoking a blunt, the beat was running in the background. We stacked the hook up, we all had verses on it, it was a posse record and was like, nine verses long.” On November 4, 2016, Cole performed at Jay Z and Beyoncé’s Hillary Clinton Rally in Cleveland, Ohio, along with Big Sean and Chance the Rapper. On November 8, 2016, Spillage Village released the official version of “Jermaine’s Interlude”, called “Can’t Call It”. The song features Cole, EarthGang, Bas and JID

On April 16, 2018, J. Cole announced a surprise free event for fans at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City. The event turned out to be a listening session for his forthcoming album, titled KOD, which was released on April 20, 2018. Cole held a second listening session in London the next day. The album’s cover and tracklist show twelve tracks and two features, both by Cole’s alter ego, Kill Edward. Cole had mentioned that KOD has 3 meanings, Kids on Drugs, King Overdosed, and Kill Our Demons. The cover art for KOD was done by a Detroit artist named Kamau Haroon who goes by the name Sixmau. The album touches on many topics including drug abuse, addiction, depression, and greed.

On January 6, 2019, Cole took to Twitter to announce Dreamville’s compilation album Revenge of the Dreamers III by uploading a gold poster-like invitation. Recording sessions took place in Atlanta beginning January 6 through January 16, 2019. Throughout the 10-days of recording, invitations were shared by the entire Dreamville roster, among other artists and producers outside of Dreamville. A total of 343 artists and producers were invited to the sessions including, Big K.R.I.T., Mike Will Made It, DJ Khaled, Swizz Beatz, Tay Keith, T.I, Rick Ross, 9th Wonder and Wale, among others. On January 23, 2019, Cole released his first lead single since 2013 titled, “Middle Child”. With only one day of tracking, “Middle Child” debuted at number 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The following week, the song peaked at number 4, making it Cole’s highest charting song. Cole performed at the 2019 NBA All-Star Game for its halftime show on February 17, 2019, in Charlotte. He performed “Middle Child”, “A Lot”, “ATM”, “Love Yourz” and “No Role Modelz”. On May 23, 2019, Cole was featured alongside American rapper and singer Travis Scott on American rapper Young Thug’s single “The London”, which would become the lead single from Thug’s debut studio album, So Much Fun.

On June 16, 2020, J. Cole released his first song of 2020, “Snow on tha Bluff”, a politically-charged track released soon after the murder of George Floyd that led to disagreements with and criticism from Noname and other rappers. On July 23, 2020, Cole released a promotional EP titled Lewis Street featuring two new songs, “The Climb Back” and “Lion King on Ice”. The former later appeared on The Off-Season.

On December 29, 2020, Cole took to Instagram to post a photo where he documented a list titled, “The Fall Off Era”. On the list crossed out, was features and Revenge of the Dreamers III. Also listed, but not crossed out was two projects, The Off-Season and It’s a Boy, which he announced would be released ahead of The Fall Off. The caption of the post read: “I still got some goals I gotta check off for’ I scram…” On May 4, 2021, J. Cole officially revealed the release date and album artwork of The Off-Season, his sixth studio album. The album’s lead single, “Interlude”, was released on May 7.

Cole played basketball at Terry Sanford High School in North Carolina. With an academic scholarship, he tried out as a walk-on at St. John’s University and was one of 10 call-back players during his sophomore year. In 2012, Cole played for the Eastern Team during the NBA All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game. In 2013, Cole told Sports Illustrated, “Sports is where it started for me. It parallels my life. Rap is such a competitive thing. That’s why I have to watch sports. I got to keep up. It’s my life in just another form.”

On July 20, 2020, Cole released an article for The Players’ Tribune, writing about his goals after graduating college to eventually playing professional basketball saying “if I can blow up in the next three years, that means I’ll only be 27. That still might give me enough time to train and pursue a professional basketball career. I’ll work hard enough to go play overseas and then try to work my way to the NBA.” On July 31, 2020, Cole released his debut signature shoe in collaboration with Puma called the PUMA RS-Dreamer. In August 2020, it was also reported by Master P that Cole was training to tryout for the NBA.

Cole has cited several hip-hop artists as influencing his rapping style, including Tupac, Jay-Z, Eminem, Nas, and Andre 3000. He described in an interview with Steve Lobel, “Jay [Z] was a mentor before I ever signed to him.” “I studied his moves that much. … I got to go on tour with him and steal a lot of gems. That’s how you supposed to do it. You’re supposed to learn and take pieces from the greatest. So, Jay was my mentor before I ever signed to him. And now that I signed to him it’s just a blessing to be able to hit him for advice and get that real 20 years of experience or however long he been in the game. It’s priceless.” “My favorite rapper was Pac,” he said. “He was my favorite rapper before I even started rapping. Before I even thought of—It went from Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown as a kid and artists like that. Even Kool Moe Dee. Just the cool dude that I looked up to. And then one day my stepfather came home from—I don’t know if he was back from Desert Storm. … I remember him coming home with that first Pac album. With ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’. It was 2Pacalypse Now. And since then—When I was too young to know what he was talking about, but it connected. Cause that’s the thing about art. It’s just truth. It’s straight–Whatever you feel.

During the composition of The Come Up, Cole started his own record label in early 2007 with current label president Ibrahim Hamad. Cole sought for an avenue to release his own music, while Hamad yearned to start a record label, prompting the two to team up to form Dreamville Records. The label is currently distributed by Interscope Records.

Cole, Omen, and Bas were the label’s inaugural artists. The label houses artists including Cole, Omen, Bas, Cozz, Lute, Ari Lennox, JID, and duo EarthGang. In-house producers include Elite, Ron Gilmore, Cedric Brown, and Meez. Dreamville Records has released nine albums, with three certified platinum or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America RIAA

In a January 2016 interview with director Ryan Coogler, Cole revealed that he was married. His wife, Melissa Heholt, who met Cole while they were students at St. John’s University, is the Executive Director of the Dreamville Foundation. Also in a May 2018 interview with radio host Angie Martinez, Cole stated that he and his wife have a son together. In 2019, he publicly spoke about his son. On July 20, 2020, Cole revealed he has two children. Cole is dual citizen of Germany and United States.

In February 2020, J. Cole announced a multi-year footwear and apparel partnership with Puma as an ambassador for the brand. According to the global director of Puma, Cole is involved in product creation, marketing campaigns and cultural guidance. With the announcement, Puma and Cole released a short film for the reimagined “Sky Dreamer” shoes, which debuted during the 2020 NBA All-Star Game.

On July 31, 2020, PUMA and J. Cole released their debut collaboration shoe, the PUMA RS-Dreamer. Cole commented on the signature shoe saying: “Over the years, basketball shoes have progressed greatly in their level of technology and comfort but have strayed too far away from designs stylish enough for cultural relevancy. The Dreamer hopes to change that reality. The highest level of on-court performance meets the highest level of aesthetic design for daily wear. Once again, you can hoop in the same shoes you wore outside.” The launch of the shoe coincided with the restart of the 2019–20 NBA season.